We report on first results of a cooperation aiming at the usage of graph drawing techniques to convey domain-specific information contained in policy or, more general, social networks. Policy network analysis is an approach to study policy making processes, structures and outcomes, thereby concentrating on the analysis of relations between policy actors. An important operational concept for the...

We report on first results of a cooperation aiming at the usage of graph drawing techniques to convey domain-specific information contained in policy or, more general, social networks. Policy network analysis is an approach to study policy making processes, structures and outcomes, thereby concentrating on the analysis of relations between policy actors. An important operational concept for the...

Maternal mortality continues to claim the lives of thousands of women in Latin America despite the availability of effective treatments to avert maternal death. In the past, efforts to acknowledge cultural diversity in birth practices had not been clearly integrated into policy. However, in Otavalo (Ecuador) a local hospital pioneered the implementation of the 'Vertical Birth'-a practical manif...

Policy entrepreneurs are individuals who attempt to influence the policy process and its outcomes through their opportunistic or incremental actions. Their success in the policy-making process has been associated with the convergence of four factors: behavioural traits; institutional factors; network position and political capital. Policy entrepreneurs have received little study in low- and mid...

The ongoing debate about the future of EU cohesion policy includes the voices of critics questioning its effectiveness, as well as those praising its contribution to regional development policy. The proponents specifically acclaim its enhancement of inter-institutional cooperation and coordination in the delivery of the regional development policy through the partnership principle. However, the...

This article presents a new method of reconstructing actors’ political positions from coded political texts. It is based on a model that combines a dynamic perspective on actors’ political positions with a probabilistic account of how these positions are translated into emphases of policy topics in political texts. In the article it is shown how model parameters can be estimated based on a maxi...

BACKGROUND Evidence-informed health policymaking is a goal of equitable and effective health systems but occurs infrequently in reality. Past research points to the facilitating role of interpersonal relationships between policy-makers and researchers, imploring the adoption of a social network lens. This study aims to identify network-level factors associated with the exchange and use of resea...

BACKGROUND This paper presents qualitative findings from an assessment of the acceptability of using economic evaluation among policy actors in Thailand. Using cost-utility data from two economic analyses a hypothetical case scenario was created in which policy actors had to choose between two competing interventions to include in a public health benefit package. The two competing interventions...

OBJECTIVES To assess the current public participation in-local health policy and its implications through the analysis of policy networks in health center programs. METHODS We examined the decision-making process in sub-health center installations and the implementation process in metabolic syndrome management program cases in two districts ('gu's) of Seoul. Participants of the policy network...